ETHOSEstablished in January 2005 soon after the launch of Everquest 2, SotD has had a very rich history of bringing together like minded, mature friends, in many virtual worlds. From and early start, SotD almost closed it's doors in 2006 when those who originally created the guild left the game. A few new leaders took on the mantle of responsibility for the EQ2 guild and it soon flourished again. Since then, through the passion of the SotD community, it has gone on to become a strong gaming community based on 3 key simple values.

- Act with Maturity. This is not related to age, but to a mindset.- Be present in the guild. You join a guild to be part of something greater.- No drama. On the most part we all pay to play these games as escapism, not to add drama and stress to our lilves. Don't do it.

GUILDS OF SOTDA brief account of the guilds SotD have participated in. While our members will have tried many other games in MMO land, these are guilds that have had, or still have, a highly active community within them, striving to achieve as a team.

Above all, we are a community that values participation. We operate on a motto of "Help, and be helped !!". If this sounds like the guild for you, look us up in our current games or just say hi here. You might want to bring your experience as a leader to SotD and help shape the guild's future or you might be interested in being a player as part of the team. Or.... you might be looking at purchasing your 1st ever MMO and want an online family to stand with you....

Well we finally did it. It took as a while and a lot of hard work but we cleared what is considered one of the hardest coils of Bahumat (Second Coil Turn 2).

This boss was so hard it literally petrified us (whether it was due to fear or mechanics is still debatable). We went in with a plan, and full credit to everyone, we actually stuck to it, worked on it and tweaked it until we were getting to the point where we were a stone’s throw away from beating the boss. But thanks to a rock solid performance we broke that stone cold gaze of hers and silenced that shrieking voice forever.

All puns aside, seriously guys, you were all amazing out there. I know how trying it was on that battle field and how frustrated we got at points and I want to commend you all for coming together in the true spirit of the SotD. This was a fight that badly punished a single mistake with petrifaction mechanic (and from what I can tell we all slipped up at one point - I'm still kicking myself over my slip up at the end). There was so much going on it was overwhelming and here was an incredible example of us working together as a team, communicating and taking on key jobs in that fight and you all deserve recognition.

First a big thanks to Phubar who helped me call out key mechanics and coordinating the effort on the small adds.

Thank you Ox for keeping the large adds well positioned and under control - without that job we would never have made it.

Maccaroni - thank you so much for calling out who had the debuffs. A true life saver.

The healers Stevie and Yogi - you had a hard time keeping us alive so well done holding us together and petrifying the big add while you were at it.

Jarzak somehow seemed to keep calm at all times and cracked on, even when everything was crumbling around him. He was often one of the last men standing and was on the ball with the adds and shriek attacks and calling out when we missed things.

A special tip of the hat goes to Badam - as wasn’t on TS and unable to hear any communication, he did an amazing job keeping on top of things when there was so much crazy going on.

Last and certainly not least - a huge thank you to all of you, for being able to put up with me (Xara) and my adorable Carbuncle ears :P (I’m suprised none of you had nightmares of me calling "Voice" and "Shriek") - I know I'm not as charismatic as Karo, but having your support is inspiring.

Now for our biggest challenge yet... opening a door

(For those who are interested - Me, Mac and Ox did get through the door in the end... and as for Turn 4... well let's just say we are in for a real treat with that one)

Last night, as a spur of the moment thing, the SotD got together with their assortment of treasure maps and went treasure hunting. It was certainly an incredible adventure and full of laughs.

For those who don't know, when you have a map you need to decipher it and figure out where to go. This was a fun hurdle to pass at times. The second hurdle involves killing the monsters that appear when the map owner tries to open the treasure chest. But the real fun part... when a chest is opened not only do we get loot, there is a chance a portal will open to a hidden dungeon know as: The Lost Canals of Uznair/The Aquapolis (depending on the map used).

Once inside the rules are simple. Kill all the monsters in a room and open the chest for loot. The twist? There are two doors to choose from. Pick the correct door and you move to the next room for better loot. The wrong door and you are kicked out. Sounds simple? Well in a way it is... if you like being trolled. There seems to be no way to tell the doors apart and there were so many times we thought we got the wrong door only for the dungeon to go "tricked you" and we moved on. The same also happened the other way too... oh there were doors that were almost no nonsense... but the cut scene still didn’t help our raising heart rates... especially as we moved deeper in.

Honestly... you had to be there to understand the feeling. Myself (Xara) and Yogi's (and others I'm sure too) heart rates were getting so high near the end. The feeling of reaching the last door to the final treasure room (and yes we made a few times to the final doors) is indescribable. Of course Macaroni certainly didn’t help as he flitted around, trying to pick his doors.

Another fun twist was random monsters with additional rewards that appeared, throwing a reasonably well organized fight into chaos as we all rushed to kill it before it escaped. It was touch and go if we got all the monsters at once, or in a steady trickle, adding yet another twist considering the wide array of different monsters we had to deal with.

But after many maps we persevered. Thanks to lucky old Ox, who took lead for one of our delves into the depths, we finally made it to the last chamber (and there were times I thought we wouldn’t – these dungeons knew how to troll us). Boy it was a sight to behold and worth the effort (as seen below):

After beating all the monsters in the last room we claimed our rewards, all of us happy (too bad it wasn't a lvl70 map).

Sadly disaster struck as we reluctantly left the chamber to search for more treasure. Stevie (seen at the front), our Master of Shinies, was driven mad. He had been slowly succumbing to Gold Sickness at the sight of so much shinies, as we had progressed through the dungeon. This last chamber however, became too much for him, the sight of so much Gil drove him crazy and he didn't want to leave. Sadly he hasn’t been seen since (you will be missed)

On the upside we did make a new friend along the way called Fox Hunter, who saw us, asked to join and tagged along and was a fun part of the team up to the end.

So thank you everyone for such a fun and eventful unofficial night. It was a nice change of pace.

In other news, myself and Ox still continue our search for the elusive secret Fox FATE. Much to my delight, Ox has great taste and shares a passion for cute and shiny things. So just because the world needs more shinies (and because you can never have too many Carbuncles), here is me an Ox on our adventures, looking adorable while searching for the FATE.

Thank you all once again for your time and happy gaming,

Xaraphiel.

PS: Any visitors reading this (along with any SotD members) who make it to the last chamber of the Aquapolis, please look out for a Lalafell Paladin who answers to Stevie. May be hiding in a pile of shiny Gil and muttering to himself.

We have lost him and want him back. Reward offered.

You will need bigger shinies to lure him out and a bag to catch him. Return to SotD guild house in Lavender Beds, Ward 16, Plot 30.

We cleared through the Binding Coil of Bahamut, clearing the first 4 turns with little effort, but the last turn hit us like a truck - literally. Each pull got better and better as we started to learn the mechanics, and in true SotD style, we took Twintania down with 1 minute to go until raid end.

SotD has had a fun year with some great successes in SWTOR, some new friends being made and, something which is very common in SotD, old friends rejoining us in various games, having a catch up on real-life and game life and having some fun. Even though we are still very much waiting for the next big game to encompass us all, we seem easily capable of finding mischief in many other games together.

It has also been a very challenging year for us as a group as we have lost 2 of our long term members. Atta and Lorak, both a huge shock to us all, for very different reasons. August gone it has also been a year since we said goodbye to Delearnor. This is what sets SotD apart from other groups for me. I can't simply replace a decade of friendship and laughter when we lose these long standing pillars of our community. Life has a funny way of waking us up sometimes. We will talk about how we will remember them as a Pantheon guild in the future.

So, what will 2018 bring for us ? Game wise, we are mostly waiting for Pantheon to land in the hope it delivers us a great community game we can enjoy for many years together. Until then we will no doubt have presence in SWTOR and various other fringe games at the moment such as Final Fantasy XIV and games like The Division.

I hope as a group, especially the wider group who we have not seen in games together for such a long time, can come together under the banner of Pantheon. We have something quite special within SotD. Everyone who joins us says that they have never been in such a warm guild and they then seem to stay with us, or if we part games, at the very least stay in touch. We have all made good strong real-life connections with one another. We encourage each other out of games and we laugh at life. We watch each other's families grow and in some cases, we see the 2nd generation of gamers joining the guild community.

So keep an eye out on the usual places, here on the guild page or on Facebook and lets enjoy 2018 together. Have a great holiday season folks. Have some great family time, drink and eat to excess and enjoy whatever game time you can get. May all of your coffees taste of Baileys !!

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